Inkheart by Cornelia Funk

For my Mystery Challenge "Beam Me Up Scotty", I needed to read mystery novel with some element of fantsy or sci fi. I chose Inkheart by Cornelia Funk.

Inkheart aroused my interest when I saw a movie with the same title starring Brendan Fraser. However, I can see once again, a movie is incapable of fully capturing the wonder of a book. The movie captured the story, rearranged it and made up its own ending. The book kept me on the edge of my seat. It had mystery, suspense, romance, evil villains, brave reluctant heroes and magical creatures. I loved it!!

Inkheart is about a man named Mo who can read characters out of their stories. The story opens with his 12 year old daughter Meggie seeing a man standing outside of their house. She tells her father and he welcomes the man in to the house. Mo knows the man, named Dustfinger, because he had read him out of Inkheart nine years earlier. Dustfinger wants Mo to read him back into the book, but Mo is afraid, because his wife Teresa disappeared into Inkheart when Dustfinger came out. Dustfnger warns Mo that the evil men he read from the book are also looking for him. Mo takes his daughter and Dustfinger to Teresa’s aunt’s house to hide the book. And so begins a dark and dangerous journey. As Inkheart continues you are introduced to Capricorn and his men who want to use Silvertongue, as they call Mo, to read valuable objects from books. They are ruthless men who get pleasure from burning and inflicting pain to people. In the end, it is left up to Meggie to save them all.
One of my favorite parts was the fact that the author used quotes from books to open every chapter. There are quotes from Fahrenheit 451, Dr. Doolittle, The Neverending Story, Peter Pan, The Princess Bride and many more. All of them were relevant to the chapter they headed.
If I had to point out a flaw, I would have to say the consistency. In the beginning of the book, Mo makes a point of stressing how when he reads, something not only comes out of the book, but also goes in. By the end of the book, it was no longer true, at least, not pointed out to the reader. It was almost as if the author was bored with that scenario or too lazy to think up someone to disappear with each new item or person brought out of books. In the end, the author brings it back as if it was always there.